


and so it goes

by Valania



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Established Adashi, Humor, M/M, Modern AU, Pining, Romance, band au, college student lance, live shows, local musician Keith, multichap, support your local music scene, unbetaed we die like shiro’s patience
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:21:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26485588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valania/pseuds/Valania
Summary: “The depressed guy at the bar with beer dripping down his front is Lance.” Hunk supplies helpfully. Lance makes a mental note to tell Hunk he’s literally the worst best friend ever when they’re back home as he hurriedly wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.But suddenly, Keith’s eyes are on him and they seal Lance’s fate as Eternally Doomed.-x-or; the one where Keith is in a local band and Lance is just trying to cope.
Relationships: Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 69





	and so it goes

**Author's Note:**

> new klance who dis 
> 
> this has been a bit of a passion project for awhile, and i just got sick of the first chapter sitting in my drafts. hopefully this motivates me to finish writing the rest (lmao)
> 
> pulled from my own live show experience for inspiration. in fact, big thanks to frank iero’s last show in slc for keith’s intro. couldn’t ‘a done it without ya
> 
> note that this is unbetaed work! mistakes are due to me being dumb of ass
> 
> enjoy!

When Lance McClain hears a few knocks at his bedroom door, he knows it’s his roommate and best friend in the entire universe, Hunk, probably worried about his well-being.

So he ignores it, burying himself down deeper in his blanket cocoon, red-rimmed eyes trained on his dark phone screen. 

_ Don’t search for her… Don’t look at her pictures… Don’t look at her posts… _

“Lance, bud, I know you’re in there sulking, man.” Hunk says, pausing his loud pounding, voice soft and slightly muffled by the door between them.

Lance sniffles louder than intended. “You know no such thing.” his voice is hoarse and cracks in odd places, as if going through a rough hormonal patch. He cringes when Hunk pounds harder in alarm. Dammit. 

“...Oh my god, Lance,  _ please _ tell me you’re not crying.”

“N-No!” Instead of the righteous indignation he intends his voice to portray, it sounds precisely as he feels—wrecked to hell. “Go away and don’t come back without some of those aloe vera Kleenex!”

Hunk moves on from his frantic pounding to the door knob, jiggling it experimentally. “C’mon, Lance! Open the damn door or so help me, I’ll call Pidge to help me blow a hole through it.”

Lance sets his phone down, the picture of a pretty blonde smiling coyly back at him. “Leave me alone, Hunk! Can’t I hang out in my own room in peace?” he yells back, now properly annoyed.

“I know you’re not ‘hanging out’ in there. You’re wallowing, probably stalking Nyma’s Instagram, aren’t you?” the doorknob jiggles again, and Lance thinks he hears clinking, as if Hunk is attempting to pick the lock. 

_ Stupid clairvoyant best friends _ . He locks his phone, Nyma’s face disappearing from his screen as he shoves it under his pillows. “Wrong! I don’t even have my phone in my hand, so go away!”

The clinking at the door stops and for a blissful second, he thinks Hunk has honored his wishes and left him alone. But then Hunk speaks, voice calm but determined. 

“I swear to god, Lance, I will call your mom if you don’t open this fucking door, you know I will.”

Lance opens the door.

-x-

“My good, merciful God,” Pidge, a self-proclaimed atheist, states, eyebrow raised, sighing as she stirs her coffee absently. “How long are you gonna walk around wearing that pitifully pained look on your face? You look like absolute shit, dude.”

Hunk snorts into his hot chocolate, hiding his traitorous grin behind his cup, which, what the hell? Pidge is always a given entity of evil, scientific jargon, and espresso. But _ Hunk _ ? Where is his sense of  _ loyalty _ ? His sense of  _ brotherhood _ ? Lance scowls, feeling incredibly betrayed. “What did I ever do to deserve such horrible friends?  _ Horrible. _ I hate you both. This friendship is  _ cancelled. _ ”

Hunk laughs heartily and Pidge rolls her eyes.”I know melodrama runs in your veins, but try to bring it down a notch to at least an obnoxious level, for our sakes, yeah?”

Lance sputters, because  _ rude.  _ “Oh, excuse me, I’ve just had the most  _ Traumatic Breakup Ever _ , but sure, I’m sorry, I guess I should’ve thought about  _ your _ feelings, Pidge, how could I have been  _ so selfish _ —” 

“Okay, okay,” Pidge sighs tiredly, popping part of the muffin in her hands in her mouth in surrender. “sorry, I get it.” she swallows as Lance pouts at his own cup of coffee, blended and covered in an irrational and unhealthy amount of sugary toppings. “You have to admit, though—I was right about her being a total bitch.”

And okay, yeah, Lance has to concede defeat on that one, because Pidge had totally called it. He sighs and sets his drink on the booth table in front of him, burying his head in his hands. The chatter of the coffee shop surrounding him makes his head throb, and he absently worries about coming back from his lunch break to man the counter with a splitting headache and a sour mood. “Yeah, you were. Want a medal?” he mumbles to the tabletop, feeling utterly miserable. 

“Yes, that’d be nice,” Pidge says, setting her own cup down as she picks up her pen and discarded notes. “Don’t forget to engrave how I’m always right and you should always listen to me on it.”

“Uh, let’s maybe leave him alone, Pidge. I think we’ve picked enough fun at his expense today. Save the rest of your teasing for tomorrow?” Hunk proposes, sipping at his hot chocolate.

“What, are we scheduling my suffering now?” Lance mutters darkly, playing with the straw in his now-empty cup. He thinks about clocking back in a whole 15 minutes out of his allotted half hour lunch break early, but upon weighing the pros and cons, he decides against it. 

“Aww, c’mon, Lance!” Hunk says enthusiastically, clapping Lance’s shoulder with a reassuring, comforting hand. “Lighten up, man, it’s Friday night! Let’s go out and do something fun to get your mind off this crap.”

“Yeah?” Lance asks, disinterested. He’s not in the mood to go out—he wants to stay in bed and watch Clueless and reruns of The Golden Girls. “Something like what?”

“Well,” Pidge looks up from her essay with a thoughtful look on her face. “Matt  _ did _ say there was gonna be a show tonight at The Garrison. You know, that tiny ass venue by the Burger King on Arusian Avenue?” When both Hunk and Lance nod in acknowledgement, she continues. “It’s supposed to be really good. Headliners are locals and they’re really big right now. I keep seeing flyers about the show all over campus.” She motions to the counter with her chin, directing Hunk and Lance’s glances there. “Hell, there’s a few right there.”

Lance raises a doubtful eyebrow at the gaudy flyers, with their galaxy prints and bold purple letters announcing The Blades show on Sept. 14th at 7:30 pm with The Bii-Boh-Bis. Lance remembers seeing the flyers earlier, and not thinking much of them, just wondering what the hell the symbol on them was supposed to be. “...uh. The Bii-Boh-Bis?”

“The Blades,” Pidge says. “Matt’s friend is the frontman’s older brother. Cool dudes, both of ‘em.”

“Oh, that’s who he was talking about last night?” Hunk says around a mouthful of cupcake. “Gotcha. Well, it sounds fun, doesn’t it? We should check it out!”

Lance sighs as he stands up, knowing full well that Hunk will drag him there if he says no anyway. “Yeah, all right. Guess it can’t hurt.”

-x-

The venue really is tiny as hell.

It’s essentially someone’s backyard; there’s a line forming outside a worn picket fence, reinforced by chain-link. The ticket booth looks homemade, with its wooden paneled walls and chipping paint. There’s a big tree in the middle of the courtyard, its thick branches spanning across the entire venue. Lance can see thick fairy light bulbs strewn over them, flashing brilliant purples and reds. The raised stage is really a converted two-car garage with the doors knocked down; the venue’s one redeeming quality is the tiny bar overlooking the stage nestled in between the merch booth and the restrooms in the courtyard.

By the time Lance, Hunk, and Pidge finally make their way in, paying their $15 fees at the booth, there’s a healthy amount of people loitering around the bar area, or else listening to the Bii-Boh-Bis’s soundcheck.

“Look, there’s Matt.” Pidge says loudly. She motions towards the bar with a jerk of her shaggy head. Hunching her shoulders, she picks her way through the crowd, Lance and Hunk at their heels.

In the dim lighting, Lance can just make out an even shaggier head sat at the bar, accompanied by two vaguely-familiar figures. He’s probably got a lecture or two with them, he reasons. 

“Hey, dingus. Move over so we can sit down.” Pidge says brusquely once she reaches her brother, bumping her shoulder against Matt’s back playfully. 

“Pidge!” Matt slurs, turning to face them all with a sloppy grin slapped on his face. “You came! And you brought your little friends!”

“How are you already smashed, dude?” Lance asks moodily as he sits down on one of the stools.

“Practically  _ newborns _ .” Matt slurs, paying Lance no mind, reaching a sloppy hand to give Pidge a half-assed, drunk nuggie. She intercepts him easily, shooting a questioning glance at the sheepish man beside Matt.

“I leave him in your care for a few hours and you turn him into  _ this _ ? I should be more irritated but honestly, I’m kind of impressed. Well done, you two.”

The taller of the two men sighs, defeated. “Not our fault. He had two beers,” he says, holding up two stiff fingers and in the dim light, it takes Lance a second to realize that his arm is a prosthetic. 

“ _ Light _ beers.” the other man corrects, and Lance recognizes him as Adam, the TA for his computer science class.

Hunk chuckles, and Pidge snorts derisively. “Sounds like Matt. Anyway, Adam and Shiro, meet my loser friends.” She says and Lance shoots them an irked glare, mumbling vexingly under his breath.

Hunk, being the closest to Shiro, extends a warm hand with a kind smile. “Hey, I’m Hunk, nice to meet you. Feel like I know you already, honestly—Matt spent an entire night just raving about you two.”

Adam takes Hunk’s hand with a grin of his own and an apologetic look in his eyes. “I’m sorry about whatever was said.”

Lance lifts a hand in greeting, a half-smile on his lips. “Lance. Nice to meet ya.”

Shiro shoots him a friendly smile as he nods his head and Adam waves. “Pleasure.” The scar on Shiro’s nose crinkles up when he smiles, and knowing it’s rude, Lance tries to keep his eyes off of it.

“So, Pidge tells us your younger brother’s in The Blades?” Hunk asks conversationally, and Shiro nods.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Shiro replies, lifting the beer bottle in his left hand to his lips. After he takes a swig, he continues. “He’ll probably stop by here to catch the end of these guys performing and have a drink before they get onstage.”

Lance tunes the rest of the conversation out, raising a hand to motion the bartender over to him to order himself a beer. The Bii-Boh-Bis have started their set, Lance realizes faintly, as he hears the beginnings of a song blast from the speakers surrounding the stage. 

He looks at his friends continuing in their friendly conversation with Shiro, Adam, and Matt (mostly Shiro and Matt, as Matt is too drunk to form coherent sentences), feeling like the lamest person on the planet—he’s newly,  _ horribly  _ single, sat at a bar in a dingy venue that’s kind of falling apart, all because his friends are forcing him to stop being a recluse.

Lance is used to getting raw deals in life. He has to admit though, that this one hurt. Because, okay, so yeah. Nyma is really hot and totally out of his league. Like, ridiculously. But they had gotten along so well and had seemed to click…

He remembers a time, what seems like ages away, when he used to make fun of people who got their hearts broken. Hell, he was the one breaking hearts.

To be fair, he thinks, it’s not so much that he had loved Nyma herself. He couldn’t have—the girl had been a complete enigma; a mystery tightly wrapped in long legs and pretty smiles. Empty words that had meant nothing. 

A voice inside his head that sounds suspiciously like Pidge (be it because she’s literally sitting next to him or because his subconscious hates him), reminds him that his words had been empty, too. 

He had been in love with the idea of her, the idea of dating her, of being in a relationship with Nyma. Not with her. And he had known it from the beginning. Still though, it  _ hurts.  _ He had dug his own grave. Now it’s time to lie in it.

Lance has to stop himself from groaning and banging his head on the bartop. He had been doing  _ so well _ at Not Thinking About Her, about the entire damned situation, and now he’s gone and undone all his hard work.

The bartender comes back with Lance’s beer and he takes a depressed sip. His ‘relationship’ had been a farce, a  _ joke _ . Fake to more than just Nyma—fake to him, too.

_ So pathetic. _

“Hey!” Shiro’s surprised voice breaks through Lance’s reverie suddenly. “I wasn’t expecting you back here this early.”

Lance hears a low voice respond. “I had some time. I think our set’s gonna get pushed back a bit. These guys take ages to get set up.”

Curiously, Lance glances over just as Shiro is motioning to his friends. 

“Keith, right?” Hunk says, offering his hand again. “Hunk. Nice to meet ya.”

Keith takes it, back facing Lance. In the dim lighting, he can’t make out much of anything, just a broad back in a black hoodie and little wisps of dark hair peeking out of a beanie. Lance notices he has a beer in his left hand. “Thanks for coming out, man.”

Hunk grins at him. “We couldn’t miss out after Pidge here told us about the show.”

Keith turns to ruffle Pidge’s hair, shooting her a comfortable smirk, and giving Lance a perfect profile view. 

Lance has maybe a couple of inches on Keith, who is clad in— _ god,  _ Lance chokes on his beer a little _ — _ tight, ripped black jeans, ratty, well-loved chucks, and, under the black hoodie, a painfully colorful, almost fucking  _ fluorescent _ shirt covered in rainbows and flowers, featuring two smiling Lisa Frank cartoon dolphins in mid-jump.

“The depressed guy at the bar with beer dripping down his front is Lance.” Hunk supplies helpfully. Lance makes a mental note to tell Hunk he’s literally the  _ worst best friend ever _ when they’re back home as he hurriedly wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. 

But suddenly, Keith’s eyes are on him and they seal Lance’s fate as Eternally Doomed.

Keith’s features are sharp and angular. There are tufts of dark hair escaping their beanie prison, framing his face and falling softly into his equally dark eyes. The dark against the stark white of his skin coupled with the sheer brightness of his shirt and the colored lighting the venue provides is almost too much for Lance’s eyes, but he can’t look away. 

Keith smiles at him and Lance can feel a definite blush rising up his neck. He hopes it’s dark enough in the venue to be an unnoticeable detail. “Hey man, good of you to come. I’m Keith.” he says, offering Lance a fingerless-gloved hand. 

Lance blinks, momentarily distracted by the dimple on Keith’s right cheek. 

Hunk clears his throat, giving him his infamous ‘Don’t Be Rude’ look, and Lance realizes he’d just been staring.

“You all right, man?” Keith says, raising a thick, dark eyebrow as his hand slowly retracts.

Lance hurriedly takes Keith’s retreating hand, hoping the look on his face doesn’t give him away. “Y-yeah,” his throat is suddenly a little hoarse. He clears it, trying to fight down the blush he can still feel on his face. “never better.”

“Really? What happened to  _ ‘Life sucks then you die, yeah, I should be so lucky _ ’-Lance?” Pidge asks mutinously.

Lance hates his friends.

-x-

The Bii-Boh-Bis’s set ends up being more enjoyable than Lance had expected. Whether that’s because of the company or actual music is a question for another day.

Keith sits on the stool next to him, asking the bartender for a beer after polishing off the one in his hand in one gulp. He radiates heat like a furnace and Lance finds himself wondering how he’s not burning up in his hoodie and beanie.

“So, ‘life sucks’, huh?” Keith asks him shortly after the bartender brings him his beer (free of charge as the frontman of the headlining band). Lance looks away from the stage, where the Bii-Boh-Bis have just finished their 4th song, to Keith.

“Oh. Uh.” he says intelligently, balking on a response that won’t make him sound as pathetic as he’s feeling. 

Keith chuckles, and there’s that dimple again. Lance purses his lips and looks down at his beer, away from temptation. “It’s cool, man. Life’s supposed to kick you in the balls every now and then, to keep you in check.”

“...Does life have a tendency to wear steel-toed boots?” Lance asks, trying extra hard to make his voice sound light and joking. 

Keith eyes him curiously for a few seconds. Even in the dingy lights, Lance can’t help but feel like he’s being x-rayed. “When it's feeling particularly bitchy,” he says, cutting himself off by taking a long swig of the beer in his hand. Lance has to force himself to look away from Keith’s throat, the bob of his Adam’s apple almost hypnotic. “or when it's trying to make a point.”

Lance breathes out a quiet chuckle in agreement, a small smile on his face. 

Keith sets his bottle down before continuing. Lance notices its empty. “The trick is showing it you’ve got cast-iron nards.” He waves the bartender over before Lance can even begin to form any sort of reply. “Keep the rounds going for my friend Lance here, on me, will you?”

The bartender flashes Keith a thumbs up as Lance sits there, dumbfounded. “Hopefully you’re not the designated driver,” he says as he reaches in his pocket for his wallet. He sets a $20 under his bottle, as a tip. “and if you are, drink responsibly.” He slides off the stool smoothly, patting Lance’s back as he passes by on his way to Shiro. 

“Hey,” Shiro says, eyes on Keith. Lance strains to keep up with their conversation against the loud music blaring through the speakers on either side of the stage. “You heading back?” he asks. Out of his peripheral vision, Lance can see Keith nodding as he slips his arms out of his hoodie sleeves, throwing it over his shoulder. He fishes a phone out of one of his front jean pockets, and Lance idly wonders  _ how _ anything can fit in there when Keith’s jeans are fucking  _ skintight _ .

“Thace’s been blowing my phone to get my ass backstage for last minute prep, so I better start heading back.” He looks at Hunk with a smile. “It was nice meeting you, Hunk.” he says before he pokes Pidge goodbye.

And then he meets Lance’s eyes and Lance swears he’s about to combust. “Cast-iron nards, Lance. See you around?” He asks him with an almost hopeful lilt in his voice and a smirk on his lips.

Lance finds himself nodding, ignoring the inquiring gazes of Hunk, Pidge, and Shiro as Keith walks away with an, “Enjoy the set!” Lance’s eyes remain locked on him until he disappears behind the door labeled “backstage, staff only.”

_ Hot damn… _

-x-

“Man, I fucking love this place,” Keith chuckles into the microphone as he tunes his guitar. “You all ready to party with us tonight?”

The resounding cheer from the crowd is almost deafening. Lance winces a bit as he takes a sip of his beer, eyes ever intent on Keith. 

“You don’t have a fucking choice, but I’m glad you’re in!” Keith grins before he produces a guitar pick from thin air. The drummer starts them out on a heavy rhythm, and before Lance knows it, Keith’s shredding on his guitar, long dark hair obscuring his face as he bobs his head along. He belongs onstage.

The Blades have a very dominating stage presence, all wearing black and purples. Though Keith, in all his Lisa Frank glory, sticks out like a sore thumb, it somehow all works. The guitar slung over his torso is fire-engine red, clashing horribly with his shirt, but it’s cohesive mayhem. 

Keith’s fingers, Lance notices even from this far away, seem to caress the fretboard, finding the correct chords seamlessly. He looks in his element, eyes closed as he brings his lips to the microphone in front of him, belting out lyrics.

They have a raw, almost punk-esque essence to their sound. Lance is entranced. 

“They’re good, huh?” Hunk asks from the stool next to his, sipping on a cup of ice water. Bless him and his natural aversion to alcohol.

“Yeah,” Lance says, eyes on Keith as the song wraps up. “Not… what I was expecting at all.” he says.

Shiro throws him a smile. “They get that a lot.”

Pidge nods from beside him and Matt. “I’ve heard them being played all over campus. People are going nuts for them.”

And now that Lance listens to them - really sits there and listens to the music instead of just gawking at Keith—he  _ does _ recognize the song. “W-wait!” Lance exclaims. “Yeah! I know this song! They kept playing this at a frat party two weeks ago!” 

“Oh, yeah!” Hunk agrees, recognition flashing in his eyes. “I remember! You even tried to hunt down the name of the song.”

He does remember now, something about Blades. He’d been too drunk to really register much more than  _ Damn, this song is good. Damn, that singer’s voice is going straight to my dick. Fuck, I need to throw up _ in the moment, however. 

“ _ Across the Universe _ ,” Adam supplies helpfully, a somewhat knowing twinkle in his eyes. “They open their shows with this song almost every time. It’s a crowd favorite.”

Lance can see why—the energy in the venue is  _ insane _ ; electrifying. Fiery, almost. Though the crowd is tightly packed, barely able to move around each other, they’re all jumping, kicking, screaming the lyrics. Lance sees some guy crowd surfing, sloshing the cup in his grasp all over himself.

The song ends almost as quickly as it begins. It’s better than he remembers, too, though that might just be the privilege of seeing Keith writhing around onstage and Lance not being black-out drunk.

“How was that for a warm-up?” Keith says into his mic. The crowd cheers again and Lance finds himself smiling along. “This next one goes out to anyone who’s ever broken your fucking heart!” he declares, and for a second, even at this distance, his dark eyes meet Lance’s. A pleasant chill runs down his spine. 

This one starts out easy—a simple baseline, accompanying drumbeat and keys. The vocals also begin smoothly, crooning about a failed attempt to save a crumbling relationship, about feeling lost and hopeless. 

It’s unnerving; Lance  _ feels _ every word sung, every chord played, every string strummed. Deep in his chest. Warmth in his heart at being understood. 

And then the song changes. 

What had started out gentle and soft suddenly morphs into something almost angry though triumphant. The lyrics change from desolation to empowerment.

_ “It’s your loss, not mine _

_ I just don’t have the time _

_ Yeah, I’m fucking fine _

_ I found myself again” _

“They never play this one live!” Shiro yells over the music and the crowd. “I wonder why they decided to this time?”

Lance purses his lips, eyes never leaving the stage as he feels a blush warming his cheeks and neck. 

_ Yeah… I wonder, too. _

He takes another swig of his beer. 

-x-

The rest of the show is amazing.

There are no other words to describe it. Lance is completely mesmerized, hardly touching his beer. 

Keith and his band are phenomenal. Holy fuck. Why hadn’t he ever heard of them before?! 

The crowd is starting to die down, some of them lining up against the merch booth, others at the bar. The majority of them have started to trickle out the door, though. 

“So, how did you all like your first Blades experience?” Shiro asks, smiling proudly. 

“Dude,” Hunk says. “They’re  _ fantastic _ . No wonder everyone was going nuts, those guys  _ really  _ know how to put on a show! Even Lance was amazed!” 

The blush returns twofold at his best friend’s words. “I-I mean, yeah,” he says airly before clearing his throat. “They’re… you know. They’re not bad.”

“Oh, come on,” Pidge says with a grin. “I saw you drooling,” Lance glares at her but she only smiles wider. “It’s okay to admit to liking things, you know.”

“Fine,” he says, looking away from her and inspecting the forgotten beer bottle in his grip. “They’re fucking amazing and I wouldn’t mind listening to them on repeat for the rest of my life. Happy?”

“Good to know,” a different, though now familiar, voice says from behind him, and  _ fuckfuckfuckfu—  _ “I’m glad you enjoyed the set.”

Fuck. Shit. Motherfucker. Of course Keith heard that. Lance looks over his shoulder and sees the frontman leaning casually against the bar, sweaty hair plastered to his forehead and neck, pleased smirk on his lips, managing to look sinfully attractive.

“Um.” Lance stammers, cursing inwardly. “Yeah. You guys were awesome, man.”

“You were,” Shiro agrees. “I noticed you played  _ Breakthrough  _ tonight.” 

“Oh, yeah.” Keith says easily. “I just…” His dark eyes trail back to Lance for a few seconds before he looks back at his brother again. “I dunno. Had a feeling someone probably needed to hear it.”

Oh.  _ Oh.  _ He  _ knows _ . Or at least suspects. Had Lance been that obvious?

“Anyway, we gotta pack up the van, so… I’ll see you guys around later, yeah?” he says, glancing around the little group. When his eyes land on Lance, he seems to soften a little. “Hopefully soon. Thanks for coming out.” 

“Yeah, man.” Hunk says enthusiastically. “We’ll try to come to the next one, too!” 

Keith waves with a smile and heads in the direction of the stage with the rest of his bandmates. “Hey, hey! Hands off that amp, Antok, that shit’s my baby!” he yells as he walks away.

God. Fucking hell. Lance is  _ so fucked. _

-x-

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos are always appreciated!
> 
> find me on [twitter.](https://twitter.com/lucari0s24)


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